Of Rings and Shoes
by Akarusa
Summary: Really, she wasn't up to anything naughty or rebellious. [Slight DxG?]


Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, J.K. Rowling does. The plot (if you can call it that) is mine.

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Of Rings and Shoes

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_Oh, no._

The reason that Ginny Weasley had snuck out of Gryffindor Tower was to find the gold band she had lost earlier that day. Really, she wasn't up to anything naughty or rebellious. The ring had the words, "Ginny Weasley" engraved on the inside of the band, with a small diamond used to dot the _i_. (She had found it odd that the diamond was on the inside, where no one could see the sparkling decoration.)

She was on all fours searching the floor underneath Harry's invisibility cloak not because of the ring's exceptional material value, but because of its sentimental value. Harry and her brothers had given her for her sixteenth birthday a few days ago, wrapped in a lovely white box and accompanied with a charmed card that played a piano version of "Happy Birthday." She had been telling them that she had been wishing for a pretty piece of jewelry to adorn her fingers with, and they bought the expensive ring for her.

Ginny knew she had dropped it somewhere in the Charms corridor running from Charms to Ancient Runes, and had finally found it lying underneath a rather large brick peeked out of the stone wall. She was just brushing off the layer of dust that had built up on it when she heard foreboding footsteps coming down the hall adjacent to the Charms corridor. Shoving the ring in her robe pockets, she sprinted a nearby broom closet and shut it was quickly and quietly as she could. Her heart pounded in her chest as she peeked through the keyhole of the door.

If there had not been a full moon outside and window right in front of the door, she wouldn't have seen Draco Malfoy and his silver blonde head walking down the hall.

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Draco Malfoy had insomnia. He was accustomed to walking through the castle halls on nights he couldn't sleep, which were practically every night. He had taken it upon himself to try to take the Prefect Patrol's night shift was often as he could, so he wouldn't get detention if Filch found him. Of course, he couldn't get all of the night shifts, and resorted to breaking the rules and wandering the halls after curfew, risking getting caught by a teacher and a few detentions. He was strolling down a somewhat shadowy hall when he heard soft footsteps in the Charms corridor.

He straightened his robes and smirked, forgetting that tonight wasn't his night shift.

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'_Please don't find me, please don't find me, please don't find me,'_ Ginny prayed, trying to stay as silent as she could. Her heartbeats were rapid, and she was afraid that he would hear them. His footsteps echoed, making Ginny more nervous with each stride. He had walked up and down the hall twice already, and she wondered why he hadn't checked the broom closet. _'Really,' _she thought, _'Anyone else would have checked the closet for anything first.'_ She rolled her eyes. _'Slytherins.'_

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Draco was disappointed. He had slowly and carefully examined every nook and cranny of the antique laden hall for suspicious activity for five whole minutes, and gotten nothing. He should have found the guilty party by now, or at least some sort of incriminating evidence. After looking at a rather large crack in the wall for the eleventh time (of which he had a strong suspicion was a result of one of the times Goyle had gotten into a drunken fistfight with Crabbe), he sighed defeated, and leaned out the window, letting the cold breeze bite at his pale skin. _'Well,'_ he said, resigned, _'At least Filch hasn't found me.'_

Just then, he heard the ominous mewling of Mrs. Norris down the hall. He bolted to the broom closet behind him.

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Ginny was irritated, to say in the least. One minute he was looking out the window, and the next he was standing in the cramped broom closet with her. She could barely distinguish his marble white face in the dark of the closet, and she contemplated what she might have had done to deserve the cruel punishment she was getting.

Draco, on the otherhand, was fairly surprised. He hadn't suspected anyone to be in the broom closet, since it was terribly overdone and clichéd. Looking down, he could see a head of long ginger hair. _'Gryffindors,'_ he thought to himself. _'They can never be original.'_

They shifted around uncomfortably. Their feet shuffled, and their backs bumped against the old shelves piled with junk. Ginny winced. "Malfoy, you're stepping on my foot," she hissed in pain. He added extra pressure to her foot before removing his own.

"_Sorry,"_ Draco sneered, clearly letting her know his apology was insincere. "I didn't realized I had _more_ dirt under my shoe. You know, if I was you and I had--"

Ginny gritted her teeth. She hadn't done anything to provoke him, and he had already insulted her! "Do you need a reminder of the last time we were in a closet together?" she said quietly, reaching for the wand in her robe pocket. He stopped talking. "We're in here together, so we might as well call a temporary truce," Ginny reasoned. He looked at her warily.

"Fine. We remain civil until we step out of this closet, Weasley," he replied.

The grumbles of, "Where are you, you brats?" and "I'll find you sooner or later," signaled that Filch had reached the hall. The dim light from Filch's old lantern streamed through the keyhole as he passed. Draco looked around the closet, waiting for Filch to hurry up and leave. Nothing interesting was on the shelf in front of him, just a few bottles of "Merle's Magical Cleaner: Guaranteed to Remove Those Tough Stains and Char Marks!" and numerous boxes full of various things, which he suspected were student's trinkets and belongings confiscated by Filch. Maybe his fireworks from last week were in there….

"So, Malfoy, why are you out past curfew?" the Weasley girl whispered politely.

He blinked. 'Was she _trying_ to initiate a _conversation_?' he thought incredulously.

Ginny inwardly smacked herself. '_Why_ was she attempting to talk to Malfoy?' she asked herself. Ah, yes, now she remembered. It was part of the whole truce thing that she thought up. She always had to go the extra mile. And sometimes, the extra mile gave her blisters. Big, painful ones.

Metaphorically speaking, of course.

"None of your business, Weasley," Draco replied condescendingly, his voice mocking hers. Ginny just looked at him in momentary anger, then smiled and motioned for him to look at their feet. Instead of the standard Mary Janes, she had four inch black stiletto heels. One was poised just 5 inches above his shiny, expensive Calvin Klein Wizarding Wear shoes in Obsidian Black, glinting menacingly in a beam of moonlight the keyhole let in. He looked back at her and shook his head vehemently. Filch's steps became faint as he turned the corner and went down a flight of stairs, now unable to hear them. Ginny smirked, and stamped her heel down on Draco's left foot, making him howl in pain.

Ginny turned the knob of the broom closet, hastily opened it, and dashed out the hall, sprinting to Gryffindor Tower as fast as her legs could carry her. That would teach _him._

Meanwhile, Draco was slumped against the closet wall clutching his injured foot and staring at his ruined shoe. It now had a huge hole where the heel pierced through the polished leather and wounded his foot. He chuckled, picked up his shoe, and limped down the hall. "A feisty one, that one."


End file.
